Friday, July 10, 2015

Xian: Day 5

Waking up super early, we boarded a flight to Xi'an from the Shanghai airport. The weird thing about China is that all of the airports have lots of little fake park benches and trees inside. This one below was my favorite. I wanna know how you grow one of those!

The other fun thing about the airport was that you take a bus to the plane rather than the plane coming to the gate. It is much more efficient and it was really cool to see how huge the actual airport was.

We landed after being given many snacks and met our guide for this leg of the trip - William. He was an older man with a huge smile and he made Xi'an the best!

As we drove around, William pointed out all of the local buildings. This was the local modern art museum and if I ever get a chance to come back - I will have to stop in here!

After our driving tour of the city, we went to a Buddhist temple. It was awesome!

Look at how high it was built and the shape of the building. The closer to the top, the more important you had to be to get in there.

There were many statues of the gods all around the temple. Look at the large Buddha on the first floor of that temple above.

This jade carving - is the story of the whole Buddha. Everything is made of different color jades - look at the close up detail!

There were several important gods here like the goddess of protection, wealth and of course a happy buddha.

After that, we went to the old Xi;an city wall. It was 9 miles total and our group decided to bike it. Biking in a dress and sandals was not easy at all but I made it through.

After the bike ride, we went to dinner and saw a traditonal chinese dance show. The costumes and moves were so graceful.

After the show, we went to the hotel for the first time that day and all passed out pretty quick. We had another 8 am wakeup call to make the most of our two days in Xi'an.